Artiklen ønsker at undersøge, hvorledes kulturelle dynamikker udgør en faktor bag humorens historiske forandringer. Dens ambition er at levere en kulturdiagnostisk undersøgelse af nye populære sensibilitets- og socialitetsformer. Artiklen forsøger at gøre indsigter fra humorens filosofi hos S. Kierkegaard, J. P. Sartre og H. Bergson tilgængelige for sociologien ved at placere dem i en simmelsk kulturteoretisk ramme. Nutidens ironiske sensibilitetsformer forstås derved som en reaktion på det, som G. Simmel benævnte “en vækst i objektiv kultur“. Dernæst skal W. Benjamins allegoribegreb fungere som et værktøj til beskrivelse af nutidens ironiske samværs- og sensibilitetsformer. Artiklens sidste del undersøger sammenhængen mellem ironiske sensibilitetsformer (camp- og retrofænomenet) og disse fænomeners forbindelse til en ironisk fænomenologi; en “tragisk“ opfattelse af kultur.
ENGELSK ABSTRACT:
Bjørn Schiermer: Irony’s Culture and Culture’s Irony:
An Investigation of Late Modern Sensibilities
The article attempts to clarify how cultural institutional dynamics contribute to historical developments in humour. This association is then used as folio for an analysis of contemporary popular forms of sensibility and sociability. The article wishes to contribute to the philosophy of humour and make it accessible for the sociology of culture by placing it in a Simmelian culture theoretical framework; a framework that attempts to understand concurrent ironic forms of humour as a reaction to the growth in, what Simmel termed “objective culture“. These impulses are then unified in W. Benjamin’s concept of the allegoric, which is intended to serve as a conceptual tool in describing contemporary social forms and sensibilities. The last part of the article consists of the unfolding of central phenomenological traits of contemporary popular culture and cultural reception (the camp and retro phenomenon) on the background of a “tragic“ or ironic understanding of culture.
Key words: Camp, sociology of culture, theory of culture, Simmel.
